Woodinville Alliance Church

We are Losing the Battle to Select Sports

“Son (Daughter), if you decide to play for this team, you have to be committed.  That means that there are going to be some days when you don’t want to play or practice but that doesn’t matter, you have to be there.  That is what commitment is.  You have to be there for your teammates, your coaches and yourself.” 

This is the mantra we tell our kids and what coaches demand from them.  Commitment to your sports team is held as the highest virtue of an American teen. 

Here is a typical schedule; tryouts in during a spring month, practices start in June and go through November for some teams, through March for other teams, tournaments in June, July & August (literally shaping vacation plans for a family), season starts in September with games on Saturdays but most of the time on Sundays and practices from two times a week to four or five times a week.

If you miss practices you won’t play in games.  You miss games and you jeopardize your position on the team.  Did I mention these teams cost anywhere from hundreds of dollars to potentially over $3000. 

So many of you are saying, “tell me something I don’t know.”  You live this.  You love sports.  Your kid loves sports.  I love sports and they have been a major part of my life.  My kids play sports.  Even select. 

Here is my plea as a youth pastor.  Sports don’t trump everything.  The spiritual education of our kids trumps everything.  Let me repeat that.  The spiritual nurturing that we are responsible for as parents, trumps everything. 

Case and point.  Winter Camp & Drenched.  Over my vast 4 years of experience,  also supported by numerous testimonies, camps might be the single most important place your kid to be in their years growing up hearing about Jesus.  Experiences in life shape us and there is something about going to a camp, getting away from normal life, being focused on fun and listening to God, that students finally get it. I have seen it the last four years and I have heard it from past students now off in college, summer camp or winter camp is where they first “got it.”  It is where Jesus finally made sense to them.  They had no homework that night, they stayed up late talking with their small group leader, they asked the questions that were on their heart and something happens, something changes. 

But parents tell me, “my kid can’t go to Drenched, he has all star practice.” From others I hear, “there is a soccer tournament that weekend, so junior won’t be making it to winter camp.” 

One more soccer game or one more baseball practice won’t change your kid’s life, but quite possibly that youth camp could change your child forever.  You tell me what which one they should be at.